So-called “principled” Republicans, Maine Senator Susan Collins and Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, today betrayed the values they pretended to uphold, when they caved on their demands that the Senate maintain important aspects of Obamacare that would protect poor families.

The worst surrender of all is that both Senators Collins and Alexander have confirmed to Sam Stein of The Daily Beast and MSNBC that the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) — created by Hillary Clinton when she was first lady, as a means to provide free medical care to the nation’s poorest children — will not be renewed in 2018 and possibly not in 2019, either.

So Collins and Alexander confirm that CHIP, a program that gives health care to 9m kids and whose money expired in Sept, won’t be renewed this year. Maybe next year.

One of the measures Collins supported was the bill Senator Alexander sponsored with Democrat Patti Murray to maintain healthcare subsidies for the poor and give states flexibility around how they implement Obamacare.

Ultimately, both Collins and Murray accepted weak “promises” from Trump and Republican leadership that laws stabilizing Obamacare markets would pass in exchange for their votes. But, unsurprisingly, they are already reneging.

To keep the government open, Senate Republicans are reneging on a promise to address the health care markets before year's end. https://t.co/cYRBkqNwFC